Oh, I worried about family in Oklahoma, prayed for Shawnee and Moore, and generally nodded my head in a grave fashion when reading reports from those stricken areas. But I live in Amarillo. I’m safe here because tornadoes never hit the city.

Last night was a wake-up call. While they’re arguing over whether this was really a tornado in the city (if it was it was like an F-0), it was obviously very possible for us to get slammed last night. As it is, there’s massive wind and hail damage, broken glass, downed trees. There was a lot of flooding, and they even had to close I-40 because of it. Landscape companies are laughing all the way to the bank, and the insurance companies are busy little bees this morning.

This was a lesson I needed to learn, for sure. It’s time to stop being complacent. And wherever DH and I end up buying our land, the first thing to go in will be the root cellar, because it will double as our storm shelter. It will have water and food, a battery-powered weather radio, flashlights, and a first aid kit. Probably sleeping bags and folding cots and chairs, too. The freezer will be down there, but I’m thinking a small camp stove wouldn’t be a bad idea. I’ll have to develop these ideas, but the idea is to be ready for an emergency.

My anniversary is this week, and it’s an occasion to think about the past, reflecting on the roadway I’ve traveled, and on the direction I’m going in.

I met my husband ten years ago on a blind date set up by a friend. For the first two years of that relationship, we had a volatile mess of a time getting to know one another. He had car wrecks, funerals, and cranial surgery, all in that short time, and both of us hurt the other at one point or another. Sometimes it must have seemed to others that we’d never really make it.

Then we got married, and we still had many of the same problems. But I remembered my parents’ advice and never let us go to bed angry. We talked out our problems, even if that meant having a shouting match to start with.

When I told him that I wanted to start growing all our own food, he was cautiously supportive, and even though we’ve had disagreements on the particulars, he’s never been against the idea. He’s always been a point of stability for me as I’ve tried to figure this homesteading thing out. He even wants to help, even if that just means mowing the lawn.

Of course, he has his own dreams, they’ve taken just as long as mine because he’s been working full time and going to school. Survival has dictated that work come first, so he’s only able to take nine hours at a time. He still has three semesters to go. I’ve supported him whole-heartedly, while making sure he remembers to live a little in what free time he does have.

Through the entire eight years that we’ve been married, though love has never been lacking, a specter has loomed over us, and soon a tragic conclusion was reached; either he or I or both of us is incapable of having children. But through love and prayer and long, careful conversation, we’ve decided to adopt as soon as we have the room for children. We won’t have the room until we have the house, and we won’t have the house until we have both the land and his new job after graduation.

Still, the family is growing. We have eight nieces and nephews, and three more on the way. One’s due any day now, one toward the end of June, and the other in October. But none of my side of the family has children, nor are they likely to, so my mother is very ready for me to adopt so she can have some grandchildren to play with (read “spoil”).

Eight years. It’s been quite a roller coaster ride, and it’s still got plenty of time to run. We’ll get where we want to be, making memories all along the way, and raising our kids the way they were meant to be raised, with God and with love.

My sister-in-law will not reveal the sex of her new baby until the baby shower. She’s told her husband and daughter, and said daughter blabbed to a friend of hers, but the rest of us don’t get to find out until the shower. I guess I get to buy green and yellow.